


Brittle Blossoms

by orphan_account



Series: Brittle Blossoms [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alpha Sherlock, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Family, Fawnlock, Gender Issues, Genderqueer Character, Implied Mpreg, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Nature, Omega Verse, Scenting, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:22:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John moves to the woods for the solitude. Unfortunately, Sherlock beats him to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Strawberries

Cashmere jumpers in his dresser, gym equipment in his basement, hot tub in his bathroom: this place says _I’m sorry_ in gruesomely expensive fashion. The small cottage is deep in a formidable wood, but if it isn’t worth as much as Harry and Clara’s Kensington house, John will eat the pine rafters.

A stained glass window dominates the sun parlour, turning the room to a riot of colour. The window’s border is a chain of strawberry blossoms; within them, a kaleidoscope of shades radiates from a crimson heart. Light seeps through the panes and paints shifting patterns on the white loveseat. 

As much as John wants to dismiss the window as a waste, he is drawn to it. He sits and watches the colours travel over him, warming him: he’s solid.

When the sun sets, he is a ghost again.

*

The next morning he wakes himself up screaming. He shoves his bare feet into his boots and limps from the cabin into the dark woods, marches until he can’t, lies down near a great fallen oak gone hollow.

_You could do it here,_ he thinks, his leg burning, his face pressed to the moist ground. The usual litany rattles through him: _can’t work burden to Harry too wild for London too broken for war._

“You want to die,” says the hollow oak.

John stands, slides the gun from his waistband, and asks, “Who’s there?”

“Gun down,” says the oak, “then talk.”

Somewhere to the east, an owl calls; the mournful sound leaves John shivering as he says, “No talk, then.”

The oak makes a frustrated noise. _Shh-crunch, shh-crunch,_ go the footsteps inside it. John aims at the wide mouth of the trunk, hands steady, and watches a figure walk out of the darkness: a tall, naked creature with red-brown curls and pale skin, dark marks and deerlike ears, tiers of velvety antlers, every line of his lean body saying _danger, feral, do not approach._

John takes the magazine out of his gun and sets them down.

The creature’s gaze is keen. His face is long and angular, and his eyes gleam in the early morning light. John wants to run his fingers over the ribs, the high cheekbones, the skin--what would it feel like?--but his gut tells him that would be a terrible mistake.

_Shh-crunch, shh-crunch._ The creature draws close to John, taut and prepared to fight and smelling of blood and running water. He lays one hand on John’s left shoulder and gently presses the left side of John’s face with the other: an unattached Alpha, then. John tilts his head to the right and breaks out in goosebumps as the creature noses behind John’s ear, careful to keep his antlers clear, and inhales. He sniffs along John’s neck and stretches John’s collar to do the same on the skin under it, his long fingers setting the fabric to rights when he finishes. Lips and tongue graze the place where John’s neck and jaw meet, and when John nods his consent, the creature scrapes his teeth there and bites down on the flesh without breaking the surface. 

They stand, the creature trusting John not to move, John trusting the creature not to hurt him (which is, his brain informs him, patently stupid, but his gut is convinced, so here he is). There are only a few centimetres between their bodies. Wind rustles the canopy, jostling arrowwood blossoms from their branches, and John wonders what the creature reads in his taste as distant crashes and screams mark an owl’s hunt. With a satisfied hum, the creature relaxes his mouth, presses the side of his face to John’s, and steps away.

_Oh,_ John thinks, an ache settling deep in his chest, _stay. Please._

“Sherlock Holmes,” Sherlock says, his voice low and resonant. He points to John’s gun. “Leave that. Go. And John? No killing yourself. Suicide is _boring,_ and I want to see you again.”

John goes. Stares out the windows in his bedroom, his kitchen, his sun parlour; doesn’t wonder how Sherlock knew his name. Plans the walks he’ll take, the searches he’ll do. Waits.

*

The next morning, John finds a rose, white and wild and thorn-sharp, on his front step.

A week later, he gets a basket of strawberries still warm from the sun.

Two weeks after that, wrapped in oak leaves and bound with ivy: honey, dripping from the comb.

*

The sun’s not come up yet, the cabin is chilly, and John can’t sleep. He buttons his brown shirt (his softest, the most like pyjamas), wiggles into his oatmeal jumper (the least likely to show tea stains), buttons his jeans (getting snug--his appetite’s come back, and it seems his love handles aren’t far behind), and wanders out to the kitchen. 

Sherlock sits at the table with two mugs in front of him and strawberry blossoms tucked into his hair.

Stifling his smile, John takes the lighter tea and the seat across from Sherlock. “You’ve been leaving gifts for me,” John says, blowing away steam and taking an exploratory sip. The “you can’t go ‘round breaking into people’s homes” talk can wait; John has a suspicion that it isn’t so much that Sherlock doesn’t know that rule as it is that Sherlock knows it and doesn’t care.

Sherlock wrinkles his nose as though insulted. “ _You_ looked for me.”

“Every day,” John agrees. The tea is just the way he likes it, milky and not too sweet. “My gun?”

“In your desk.”

John nods. “Good. Now, come on, I want to show you something.” They make their way into the sun parlour, John managing to restrain himself from teasing Sherlock, who is trying to look bored even though he’s clean from head to toe and first-date nervous if John’s ever seen it. “This window doesn’t look like much now,” says John, gesturing to the stained glass, “but it’ll be better when the sun comes up, and it’s best at sunset.”

“I could come back then,” Sherlock says.

Sherlock’s back is warm under John’s hand; John strokes the soft, short fur, and Sherlock leans close against John’s side. Nuzzling the dark tip of Sherlock’s nose, John says, “You can stay, if you want to. Or finish your tea, at least.”

“Haven’t had tea in years. Not since I left.”

“‘Left?’” John debates the wisdom of kissing Sherlock’s long lashes and decides against it.

“Long story.”

“We’ve got time. Tell me over tea. I think I have some biscuits in.”

“You don’t.” John pulls back, and Sherlock opens his otherworldly eyes. “I ate them.”

“You arse,” John says amiably, and Sherlock smiles as the first light begins to glow behind the glass.


	2. Streams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He smells wild, and John is waiting for him to bolt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for corpses and mild canoodling. Neither one is gratuitous, I hope.
> 
> Certain plot points will make more sense if you are familiar with [this story](http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm011.html).
> 
> Most of all, a very large and sincere thank you to everyone who waited for this chapter. I hope chapter postings go a bit quicker from here on out. <3

“You didn’t leave me any biscuits at all?” John says, setting his empty mug on the ground. He and Sherlock have moved to the front garden to watch the sun come up. The horizon’s blocked--too many trees--but they watch brilliant colours bleed across the sky and over the grass. John’s in a folding chair, and Sherlock’s seated between John’s legs, knees pulled to his chest.

Sherlock grunts. “Hadn’t eaten much lately. I had work to do, and food slows me down. Anyway,” he continues, before John has a chance to ask how in the hell _food_ of all things slows him down, “they were jammie dodgers.”

“Your favourite?”

“Mmm.”

A song thrush chirps. The morning is wet and cool, though the oatmeal jumper keeps out the damp, and John can feel Sherlock’s warm sides through his jeans. Strong, smooth skin covers most of Sherlock’s body; patches of dark pigment are dense over his hips, fingers, and shoulders and sparse over the rest of him. Light markings make bands around his forearms. His ears and tail are furred, and thicker coverage trails dark from his navel to his groin.

He smells wild, and John is waiting for him to bolt.

John watches a robin tear a worm from the ground and swallow it whole. He rests cautious hands on either side of Sherlock’s neck and thumbs the bases of Sherlock’s ears, marveling at the texture of the short fur there. Slowly, careful not to dislodge the strawberry blossoms tucked into Sherlock’s hair, John traces his way to the pointed tips of Sherlock’s ears; they flick forward, as though by reflex, but Sherlock is otherwise still. 

_Easy_ , John thinks, lifting his hands and running his fingers down Sherlock’s antlers. They’re branch-brown and velvet-soft. John traces their curves, fascinated; when he squeezes them--gently, so gently--they compress.

“Still early,” Sherlock says. “Won’t be bone ’til autumn.”

John slides his hands down to lay them on Sherlock’s shoulders. Debates whether to bring it up, whether he’ll spook Sherlock away, and decides to risk it: “You stayed away the week I was in heat.”

Sherlock stiffens. “Problem?”

“No,” John says, rubbing his thumbs in reassuring circles. “Just seemed odd. You scented me, you brought me gifts... thought you’d be interested.”

“You take neither suppressants nor birth control,” Sherlock protests.

John half-smiles. “You _have_ heard of condoms?” 

“Of course.” When John doesn’t reply, Sherlock adds, his voice somewhat less prickly, “I haven’t--I’ve never shared a heat.”

“Ah.” John, who’s been a first-date kind of guy from the get-go, hadn’t considered that possibility. “Well. We don’t have to share heats, Sherlock. I mean, really, we don’t _have_ to do anything. We can just--see where it goes. It’s all fine.”

The sunrise is over. The chorus of birds is in full song. The air’s warmed enough that John wriggles his jumper over his head and drapes it over Sherlock’s shoulders.

“I don’t need that,” Sherlock grumbles, but he ties the sleeves together before he takes John’s hand and leads him into the house and, once they’ve packed a knapsack with supplies, into the forest.

*

John would not have described Sherlock as “talkative”, but the deeper they walk into the forest, the more John changes his mind. Sherlock sets a swift pace; John trails after him, learning about everything from dormice (“there aren’t many, but look, there’s a nest in that oak”) to rose elders (“Mrs. Hudson--I’ll introduce you later--makes tea with the bark”) to decomposition rates of human flesh in mud versus riverbank versus dry land (“I’ve an arrangement with a local morgue: they provide me with corpses, and I provide them with data.”)

“You live on a body farm,” John says, the big picture sinking in as he stares at a pale, half-buried leg. “You have the run of this whole forest, you can do anything you want here, and you choose to surround yourself with dead bodies.”

Sherlock pauses. Glances back over his shoulder. “Problem?”

“No,” John says, unable to repress his grin. “It’s brilliant.”

Sherlock’s mouth twitches. “I see your leg’s not bothering you,” he smirks, but he slows down until John catches up, all the same. 

For hours, Sherlock leads them in silence. The air, which had been warm and humid enough for sweat to sting John’s eyes and soak his shirt under his knapsack, becomes cooler; the canopy coverage becomes thicker; the sounds of hidden animals become more frequent. After a break for water (and, for John, trail mix), they cross a stream with a rocky bed.

“Don’t drink from it,” Sherlock warns. “Don’t drink from any of the streams we cross today.”

“Yeah, I may not be a great antlered genius, but I’m not stupid, ta. Though it sounds like the water’s talking,” John says, surprised. He thinks he hears _drink_ and _tigers_ in the stream’s rhythm, but his hearing’s not been the same since the war, so he doesn’t mention it.

John expects Sherlock to dismiss him, but Sherlock says, his tone grave, “Don’t listen.”

By the time they reach the second stream, John is certain that the water’s forming words. “Sherlock, do you hear that? It’s the damndest thing, it sounds like the stream’s saying--”

 _“Don’t,”_ Sherlock snaps, sounding as fierce as John’s ever heard him. His eyes are forbidding and wild, his body as feral-taut as the first time John saw him. 

“All right, all right, keep your shirt on,” John mutters as he steps from rock to rock. “Not that you can be arsed to wear one.” Dammit, though, the stream _is_ talking; _drink_ , it says, and _wolves_. 

Cooler, darker, louder, and the third stream murmurs before them. Sherlock crouches on the mossy bank and sits the way he did this morning, knees to his chest, arms clasped around his legs. John sets down his knapsack, joins him, and, after a moment’s hesitation, rests his head on Sherlock’s shoulder.

 _Those who drink from me will turn to deer_ , says the stream, insistent as sunrise.

Ah.

“I was ten,” Sherlock says, leaning toward John. “I begged Mycroft, my older brother, to bring me here. He didn’t want to--said it was too dangerous--but I promised to listen to him if he’d only let me see the streams for myself.”

John lays one arm across Sherlock’s back. He remembers learning about transformations like Sherlock’s in med school textbooks: _idiopathic_. _Rare_. _No known cure_. 

“Mycroft wasn’t fast enough to catch me, and--well. Obvious.” Sherlock clears his throat. “Mummy was furious, of course. Dragged me to every specialist in London. Once it became clear that they couldn't help, that I was too wild for the city, she and Father let me come back here. Mrs. Hudson looked after me. Mycroft, too, when he wasn’t away at school.”

John presses a kiss to Sherlock’s shoulder, which is warm on John’s lips and salty with sweat. “My gran used to tell me stories about people like you,” John says. 

“‘People like you’,” Sherlock sneers. “You can say it, John: ‘cursed’. I know what I am.” 

The stream is loud in John’s ears, the moss is damp beneath John’s jeans, and the bitterness in Sherlock’s voice is fucking well unacceptable to John’s heart. John scrambles to his feet; Sherlock stares up at him for a moment, expressionless, and stands. John lays his hands on the sides of Sherlock’s face. Gazes at the pale irises, the dark marks around the eyes and over the nose and lips. Runs his thumbs along Sherlock’s cheekbones.

“John,” Sherlock whispers. He presses a tentative kiss to John’s forehead.

“I dried the rose you brought me,” John says, taking Sherlock’s hands in his own. “Ate the strawberries. Drank the honey in my tea.” _You are_ not _cursed,_ John thinks, fierce and protective. “You’re brilliant, I missed you, and I think you should come home with me,” he says, hoping it’s enough.

Sherlock picks up the knapsack and hands it to John. “If we hurry,” Sherlock says, helping to settle the pack on John’s shoulders, “we can make it before sunset. I hear you’ve quite the sun parlour.”

John tucks his thumbs under the knapsack’s straps. “I hope you can keep up,” he grins, and he and Sherlock turn toward home.


	3. Jumpers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That first day in the forest,” John says, heart beating faster. “When you scented and tasted me. What did I taste like to you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the, uh, rating, uh, changed. Yup. If that doesn't shake your boat, that's cool. If it does, well. *new chapter jazz hands*

The sun’s still up when they reach home. John heads straight for the shower, an oversized zero-entry affair with decorative river stones and a heated bench; once he’s washed, dried, and wrapped in his striped bathrobe, John hands Sherlock, who’s leaning against the kitchen counter, a washcloth and a towel and gestures to the bathroom.

“Mrs. Hudson made me shower last night. I’m too clean as it is,” Sherlock insists, but John’s from the military, and he’s stared worse than Sherlock into submission. Sherlock makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, unties John’s oatmeal jumper from his shoulders, drops it on the floor, and vanishes into the bathroom. 

Ten minutes later, Sherlock sulks back into the kitchen, naked as ever. “I stink of your horrible soap, John,” he grumbles. “I hope you’re happy.” 

John rifles through the fridge. “There’s nothing horrible about pine, drama queen. Now, besides all of my biscuits, what do you eat?” 

Sherlock insists that he doesn’t eat, John insists that Sherlock is an idiot, and Sherlock insists that John has terrible taste in soap, none of which gives John any idea of what to do for dinner. They end up taking their plates--Sherlock’s heaped high with carrot and courgette, John’s smothered in brown gravy from a packet--to the table on the garden patio. The calls of the crickets rise and fall in the still air; John’s cutlery clinks in counterpoint. 

The edge of the forest glows, incandescent, as the sun begins to set. “Come on,” John says, taking their empty plates inside, “we’ll miss it.” 

The sun parlour is aglow with colour.

Sherlock sprawls across the sofa, his head draped over one armrest. John taps Sherlock’s legs until Sherlock lifts them; once John’s settled, Sherlock’s feet land in his lap. John runs his fingers along Sherlock’s shins, over the freckles on Sherlock’s knees, over Sherlock’s dark toes. Sherlock’s pale eyes, watchful and fascinated, follow John’s touch.

“You’ve got a patch of blue over your face,” John says, rubbing the arch of Sherlock’s right foot with his thumbs.

Sherlock’s eyelids flutter closed. “Yours is green,” he replies, his voice low and resonant. 

As the light dims, the colours drift over them like bright continents. John massages his way up Sherlock’s right leg, then starts in on the left. Several times, he thinks that Sherlock has fallen asleep, but small stretches and hums of pleasure prove him wrong. 

Darkness, and they haven’t moved. 

“That first day in the forest,” John says, heart beating faster. “When you scented and tasted me. What did I taste like to you?” John thinks he’s heard it all at this point--his previous lovers have said everything from “plasters” to “oatmeal biscuits”--but flavour depends as much on the taster as the tasted: John isn’t sure what drew Sherlock to him.

Sherlock sits up and pulls his knees to his chest. His fingers are dark against his pale legs. “Blood. Wool. The electricity before a thunderstorm.” His ears curl forward in what John thinks might be embarrassment. “Jammie dodgers.”

John grins. “Flavour?”

“Raspberry, obviously,” Sherlock says, affronted.

“Mmm. Raspberry, I can live with. The orange ones are blasphemy.”

Sherlock eases himself to the floor and kneels between John’s legs, his eyes fixed on John’s. “Convention would have had you tasting me, too,” Sherlock says, quiet and curious.

John swallows, his face tilted up to Sherlock’s. “Didn’t want to frighten you away.”

Sherlock leans his head to the left. John moves to the edge of the sofa and sits tall, laying one hand on Sherlock’s right cheek and one on Sherlock’s right shoulder. He leans his face close to Sherlock’s skin and inhales.

_Oh._

Slowly, never breaking their contact, John breathes in Sherlock’s scent. He kisses Sherlock’s shoulder, Sherlock’s collarbone, the fur at the base of Sherlock’s ear. Resting his mouth in the curve between Sherlock’s neck and shoulder, John draws the skin between his teeth and bites down, firm and gentle.

**_Oh._ **

John tastes, and breathes, and has no sense of where he ends and Sherlock begins. When he can bring himself to let go, he sits back, slides his hands to Sherlock’s waist, and sighs, “That was amazing. _You_ are amazing.”

Sherlock’s smile is luminous. 

“God, Sherlock. You’re all lightning and wood smoke and honey. And pine sap, and don’t tell me it’s the soap.”

“Violin rosin,” Sherlock says, almost shyly, and John is--has been since they met--wholly entranced.

“You beautiful genius,” John murmurs. He leans in close, nuzzling Sherlock’s face and pressing lines of reverent kisses along Sherlock’s skin. “Play for me sometime?”

“Yes,” Sherlock breathes, his lips opening against John’s.

Their kiss is warm and deliberate. John nibbles and sucks on Sherlock’s bottom lip, letting Sherlock's tongue explore his mouth and growing hard all the while. Just as he wonders whether Sherlock has noticed his arousal, Sherlock wraps his arms around John, lifts him easily, and lays him on the floor. 

“Pillow,” John manages before Sherlock’s over him, kissing him awkwardly and pulling open his robe; Sherlock gropes blindly at the sofa until he finds a bolster and slides it under John’s head. Sherlock’s lips and hands move over John’s face, John’s ribs, John’s hips, worshipful and hungry and _wanting_. “Easy,” John says, breathless, “I’m not going anywhere.” He guides Sherlock’s face to his own and runs his hands over Sherlock’s arse, teasing his fingers through the fur on the underside of Sherlock’s tail.

Sherlock gasps. Pupils wide and dark, he lowers his hips and--oh, Christ, but he’s hard--ruts against John’s leg, never taking his gaze from John’s. His antlers form a stark silhouette against the ceiling. John groans as his swollen cock slides against Sherlock’s stomach over and over; John’s wet and blissful and impatient and _oh_ he’s getting close, so close, and--

Sherlock grabs John’s hips and flips him over. John catches himself, resting his weight on his forearms and spreading his legs as Sherlock lifts John’s robe and slides his fingers through the lube pooled in John’s arse. He drags his wet fingertips along the flat, sensitive skin between John’s arse and cock and pushes his erection between John’s thighs in one slick, hard shove. 

“Oh, God, _yes_ ,” John moans, squeezing his legs together and tensing his muscles to tighten himself around Sherlock. The pressure of Sherlock’s pulsing length against him is--is--”Touch me, please, I’m so close,” John pleads, taking Sherlock’s right hand from his hip and guiding it to his aching cock. 

His fingers still covered with John’s lube, Sherlock makes a loose fist. John slides into it with a sob of relief and rocks: back onto Sherlock fucking his thighs, forward into Sherlock’s hand, again and desperately again, moaning with their rhythm. He hears Sherlock pant behind him, feels Sherlock come hot and wet between his legs, and John’s orgasm crashes through him, inside and out, as he throbs in Sherlock’s hand. 

When John goes still, Sherlock drapes himself across John’s back and licks the sweat from the nape of John’s neck. “Good?” he asks, nosing behind John’s ear. John can hear the sleep in his voice.

“Very good,” John says, reaching up to clumsily pat Sherlock’s face. “Bed?”

“Mmph,” Sherlock says.

“I’ll be there,” John points out, sliding away from Sherlock and getting to his feet. He wipes his robe between his thighs; it dries him off, but he’ll have to shower first thing in the morning. 

“Bed,” Sherlock agrees.

They make it to John’s room and slide between the sheets. Sherlock lies on his back with a battalion of pillows, and John settles on his stomach and, mostly, on top of Sherlock. John falls asleep to the sound of Sherlock’s heartbeat and the feel of Sherlock’s fingers in his hair.

When John wakes, he’s alone. He doesn’t worry; he's surprised Sherlock stayed indoors as long as he did. After a shower, John wanders into the kitchen, craving coffee, and smiles: Sherlock has taken his oatmeal jumper.


	4. Apples

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock leaves, Harry and Clara appear, and John thinks about family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I set out to write fawnlock Omegaverse, and it seems to be turning into a story about couple of gender-aschematic folks and their family of choice. And porn. It is also turning into porn. But not in this chapter. Sorry. Or you're welcome. *shrugs* *offers you tea and cookies*

The day’s grown warm by the time that John and Sherlock come home from their morning rounds. John sets the thermos, torch, and clipboard on the utility room table, bins the bag of spent latex gloves, toes off his muddy boots, and scrubs his hands clean at the sink. He watches through the window as Sherlock talks to himself, waving his hands and pacing around the garden. 

John smiles as he turns off the tap.

When John has showered and dressed, he slips on his trainers and walks out to the garden patio. The forest’s all golds and yellows; John smells the sweetness of fallen leaves and, fainter, apples on the branch. “I’m going to make breakfast,” John says. “Want anything?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “Can’t eat. I’m thinking.” His bare feet are muddy and flecked with dead grass, and the beginning of his autumn ruff is growing in around his neck and over the center of his chest.

John crosses his arms. “Toast can’t actually stop you thinking, you know.” 

“We’ve been over this, John. Eating slows great minds.” 

“You should at least shower. You were just on a body farm, for God’s sake.” Sherlock doesn’t answer, so John deploys the nuclear option: “Don’t think I won’t come out there with the hose.”

“You couldn’t catch me,” Sherlock scoffs, but he strides into the house all the same. 

A short while later, clean and dry, Sherlock grabs a spoon from the drawer and a container of strawberry yoghurt from the fridge. He takes the chair across from John’s at the kitchen table and eats in great overflowing spoonfuls; John crunches his toast with an expression that is, Sherlock informs him, “unbearably smug”.

“Not smug, Sherlock,” John counters, setting down a crust. “Just glad to see you eat.”

Sherlock’s face softens. His lips part, but before he speaks, the doorbell rings.

Sherlock doesn’t leave so much as he disappears.

The spoon is a wet mess on the table. The chair is flat on the floor. The sliding door to the garden patio is open; a faint breeze blows in.

The bell chimes again.

John opens the front door and finds Harry and Clara on the steps, arms full of grocery bags. Harry’s face is wide and wary; Clara’s dark hair is twisted into a low, tight bun. Their shirts look finely tailored. 

“We brought groceries,” Harry says, and John suppresses a laugh: it may be for the best that Sherlock bolted.

“Yeah, I see that, ta. Come in.”

*

The kitchen table has never felt so cramped.

Clara taps her foot on the parquet, her painted toenails bright against her sandals. Harry thumbs at her mobile, new since John last saw her, without looking up. John purses his lips and watches their teas cool untouched and wonders where Sherlock has gone.

“So,” John tries, “did you come by just to drop off the groceries, then? Because I’ve been driving into town to get my own without any trouble. Been doing locum work there, too. My leg really is better.”

“So I see,” Clara says, raising an eyebrow.

The inside of John’s mouth is well-chewed by the time Harry says, “Actually, John, we had some news we wanted to share in person.” She grins and rests one hand on Clara’s knee. “Our surrogate’s pregnant. We’re going to have a baby.”

John avoids voicing his first (“Shit, I thought someone had died”) and second (“Which one of you is the father?”) reactions and finds a smile to answer Harry’s. “That’s fantastic,” he says, surprised to find that he means it. “Congratulations.”

Harry beams. “Thank you. She’s three months along, no idea about the baby’s sex yet. We’re just so excited.” She and Clara talk about cradles and strollers, nappies and blankets, educational toys and preschool enrollment. John’s relieved; it’s best to let them carry the conversation.

 _I’m not going to bail you out_ , Harry had said when John, miserable, gambled himself near bankruptcy after the war. _I appreciate what you did for me when I was drinking, John, but... look. It’s only natural that you want an Alpha to rescue you, but you need to fix your problems on your own. Clara’s right: you’ll be better off for it in the long run._

Clara had been wrong, of course. Once John hit bottom, Harry got a call from Ella, who told her, with John’s permission, how ill John was. Harry and Clara got a lecture, also from Ella, about gender essentialism. John got a house. 

Silence: Harry and Clara seem to be done talking about the baby.

“I’ve,” John starts, staring at his tea and thinking ahead to how he’ll explain: “I’ve met someone.” 

Harry lights up. “Oh, that’s wonderful!” 

“Yeah, it is, actually,” John agrees. “His name’s Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes. He’s... God, he’s brilliant. Intense. Plays the violin like no one I’ve ever heard.” 

Harry hums her approval. “Mmm, talented.”

“He is. He was here when you rang the bell, but the sound startled him away.” John steels himself and adds, his left hand working, “He’s part deer. He got transformed when he was ten.”

Harry blinks. Clara blinks. 

“So he’s cursed,” Clara says.

John shakes his head. “That’s not how I think of him, no.”

“Well, that’s...” Harry’s trying, John realises. _Really_ trying. “It’s good that you’ve met someone, John. I’m so glad for you both.” Harry takes a sip of what must be well and truly cold tea. “When do we get to meet him?”

“When he decides to stay.” That much, at least, is simple.

There’s not much to say after that. They finish their tea. They rise from the table. John and Clara exchange small nods; he and Harry exchange hugs. 

“Hey, about the house,” John mumbles when Clara’s in the car and Harry’s halfway out the door. “Between my money and Sherlock’s, we really could take over paying the mortgage if--”

“John.” Harry puts her hands on either side of John’s face just the way their mum used to do. “The house is a gift. It’s yours. Enjoy it.” 

*

After a quick lunch, John phones Mrs. Hudson, who tells him that Sherlock left her house an hour ago. 

“He’s in one of his moods, John,” she frets. “He had a bit of a strop. Threw himself down on the sofa and wouldn’t get up ’til I told him that Mrs. Turner was coming over for tea. He probably went off to his oak for a sulk, but if your leg’s not up to going after him--you know I understand, dear, I’ve a hip--don’t worry about him if you can help it. He’s impossible, but he always comes home in the end.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” _While I worry about him. Sorry, Mrs. Hudson._

Mrs. Hudson sighs. “His mum and dad never understood that about him. They told him he was wild, and he is, a little, but it’s more that he’s got his own rules. But you and I know that, don’t we?”

John blinks. Clears his throat. Blinks again because he is absolutely _not_ going to cry into the bloody phone, ta very much. “Yeah. Thanks, Mrs. H.”

“My pleasure, dear. I’ll let you go now--I’ve just put the kettle on.”

John’s still blinking when he leaves the house. He goes first to the apple tree to pick a couple of honeycrisps, then into the woods. He rolls up his sleeves and wipes the sweat from his forehead, wondering for a moment if his heat’s coming on early, but he feels clear-headed and strong: it’s the sun. 

Dried arrowwood leaves crunch beneath his boots as he approaches the old oak.

“Sherlock?” John peers into the empty, fallen trunk. His eyes adjust to the darkness; he can just make out the pale shape of Sherlock’s back. Sherlock is sitting as he usually does, his knees clutched to his chest. Draped over Sherlock's feet: John's oatmeal jumper.

John approaches slowly, pulling an apple from each pocket and setting them down before sitting with his legs on either side of Sherlock’s body. He rests one cheek against Sherlock’s back. “It was my sister and her wife. They’re having a baby--well, their surrogate is. Or is that--shit. I never know the right way to say these things.”

“When are you moving back to London?” Sherlock’s voice is low and flat. Resigned.

“Come again?”

Sherlock swallows. “Surely even you’ve noticed that you’ve changed, John. Your leg’s not bothering you. Your nightmares are less frequent. You’re working again. You’ve regained the stone-and-a-half you lost while you were ill, and you haven’t taken your gun out of your desk since I put it there. You can go home to your family now,” he concludes, his voice bitter in the oak’s thick air. 

John presses a kiss to Sherlock’s back. “I’m not moving to London,” he says, grabbing one of the apples and tapping it against Sherlock’s arm until Sherlock takes it. “Quit sulking. Eat.” 

Sherlock does. John picks dried leaves from Sherlock’s hair. Hands him the second apple. Holds him close. Tries to help Sherlock deduce it: _You are my home. You are my family._


	5. Fires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's morning is... eventful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I told Ghost, I thought this chapter was gonna be about gender. It ended up being about butts. My apologies, or you're welcome, depending.

John’s sweat-slick between the sheets, riding his favourite vibrator in slow strokes, when the sound starts from down the hall. 

_Beep, beep._

He turns off the vibrator and slides it out, groaning with disappointment. His face feels hot; brisk air seeps in through the open windows.

“Sherlock?”

A whiff of something unpleasant and un-food-like wafts in from what John can only hope is the kitchen, followed by the distinctive rumble of the exhaust fan over the stove.

 _Beep, beep, beep._

“Sherlock, is that the smoke alarm?”

“No.”

Right, then. John strokes himself back to arousal: he’s on a schedule, here, and he’s not stopping for anything short of a fire.

The beeping ends. Footsteps sound down the hall. Sherlock sweeps into the room, an oven mitt on one hand and a kitchen towel in the other, and announces, “John, you needn’t--” Sherlock stops. Tilts his head. Watches the quilts move over John’s body. “You’re masturbating,” he concludes, his tone equal parts confused and put out.

“Yeah,” John agrees, lifting his hips and spreading his legs. “Yeah, I am.”

Twin _fwump_ s mark the towel and the oven mitt falling to the floor. “Why?”

John turns the vibrator on and slides it between his arse cheeks with his free hand. His mouth falls open as he inhales-- _fuck,_ he’s so close, if Sherlock would just... “Why am I masturbating?”

“I believe I was perfectly clear.” 

John rolls his eyes. “You woke me up, all but demanded to finger my arse--”

“The Omega perineal body is unusually thin,” Sherlock protests, “unusually located, _and_ , more unusual still, voluntary in nature, allowing the openings of the anus and vagina to co-exist in proximity and thereby making it a singularly interesting topic of study--”

“--and one that got you so turned on that you climbed on top of me and fucked yourself on my cock until--and I’m doing my best not to take this personally, Sherlock, I really am--you _got bored and wandered off._ The first of many groups of university students is coming to see the body farm at nine, so I figured I should go ahead and get off instead of traipsing through the woods with them with a raging hard-on, wetter than a rainy Sunday,” John concludes, his words interspersed with gasps of pleasure.

Sherlock hurries to the side of the bed and stares at the moving quilts, entranced. “I realised that I’d forgotten to take the eyes out of the microwave.”

John stills. “Oh, Jesus.”

“I’d also forgotten to turn off the microwave. Was distracted. Was thinking about you, about the way you’ve smelled the past few days. Keep going,” Sherlock urges, curling one hand around his cock.

“... That _was_ the smoke alarm. Sherlock, you utter shit.”

Sherlock’s frustrated growl goes straight to John’s groin. “I put the fire out. Why have you stopped?”

“Jesus Christ, you just lit the bloody house on fire, why wouldn’t I--”

Sherlock throws back the quilts, straddles John’s hips, and lowers himself onto John’s cock, and oh, _there_ , that’s what John wanted: Sherlock hot and tight around him, hungry and desperate above him in the chilly air. Sherlock moans and bares his long, dappled throat as John clutches Sherlock’s thighs and rocks up into him, down onto the vibrator, setting a rhythm that leaves them both panting.

When John doesn’t think he can hold off much longer, he runs his hands up Sherlock’s body to fist them in the thick fur of his ruff and pulls him down until their faces are close, so close, their breath shared and hot between them and Sherlock’s pupils blown black in his wide eyes. Sherlock shakes with the effort of holding himself so his antlers stay clear of the bed, fine beads of sweat gathering at his hairline.

John slides his left hand around Sherlock’s cock, fingering the loose skin that will become his knot when they’re in heat, and cups his right hand around the side of Sherlock’s neck, palm pressed to the base of Sherlock’s ear. “Come on,” John whispers, squeezing and thrusting and never taking his gaze from Sherlock’s, “come on, Sherlock, come with me, that’s it, that’s--oh. _Oh._ ” Sherlock twitches in John’s hand and around John’s cock as John shudders--tight around the vibrator, deep in Sherlock’s arse--and for one glorious, unbounded moment, their bodies feel indistinguishable, one in heat and pleasure.

After John stops the noises he didn’t know he was making, he hears the buzz of the vibrator and the soft, shared sounds of two people catching their breath.

“Don’t shower,” Sherlock manages as he runs his fingertips through the come pooled on John’s chest. “I want everyone to know you’re mine.”

“You’re disgusting,” John grins, turning the vibrator off and sliding it out. “You could come with me, you know. Teach part of the class. Anyone with two neurons to rub together would notice that we’re gone on each other, even if I didn’t reek of sex.”

Sherlock rolls off the bed, gracefully finding his feet. “You’re already subjecting the students to a forest full of dead bodies, John. They hardly need to be frightened further.”

John reaches into the bedside table for a cloth and wipes himself dry before he stands. “You aren’t frightening,” John says, but Sherlock is already gone.

John is on time for his appointment. Sherlock follows every group. Neither the students nor the professors suspect a thing.

*

The woods are a dark tangle of bare branches as John makes his way home by torchlight. Scrabbling sounds overhead and in the undergrowth mark the paths of squirrels and mice; John saw them during the day as well, scurrying for cover, fat against the coming cold. 

When he reaches the back garden, John turns off the torch, slips it into his pocket, and promptly stumbles over the hammock stand. He catches his balance and brings the stand and sling to the patio; it’s late enough in the season that he ought to wash them both and store them in the shed for the winter. He never did use the hammock, though he found Sherlock sprawled in it (and asleep in the sun, though Sherlock would never admit to it) more than once.

“Am I really not frightening?” Sherlock’s voice asks from the garden. 

“Jesus Christ.” John whirls around and searches the shadows. His breath fogs before him on each exhale. “You are, when you try to be. Get over here, you mad bastard.”

Sherlock strides toward John and stops with a few metres between them. The patio lights cast sharp shadows on Sherlock’s face. “The students are more receptive to you than I believe they would be to me,” Sherlock says, “but your instruction is merely adequate. Mine would be exceptional.”

With some effort, John puts aside his hurt and says, “You’ll teach next time?”

Sherlock stares. Sets his hands on his hips. Nods.

“Right,” John says. “Next time, then. Now get inside. I’ll be in heat in a few days--a week, at most--and we’re bloody well going to talk about that before it happens. And don’t tell me that talking is ‘boring’, Sherlock. You’re not getting out of it.”

“Talking is fine. It’s listening that’s boring,” Sherlock grumbles, but he follows John into the house just the same.


	6. Hungers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John talks. Sherlock listens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It appears we've gotten to the gender! If discussions of mpreg or non-binary genderosity and less-than-stellar reactions thereto will in any way trigger you, maybe skip this one?

Steam rises from the thrumming water as candles flicker on the counter. Sherlock, his arms spread wide along the recessed tub’s edge, tilts his head back and closes his eyes. Just as John begins to suspect that Sherlock, the shit, has dozed off to avoid listening--John’s watched Sherlock resist sleep enough times to know an evasive manoeuvre when he sees one--Sherlock says, “You thought it would be you.”

John shifts so the jet at his back massages his bad shoulder, grimacing at the pleasure/pain in his sore muscles. “Sorry?”

“You thought you’d be the one having the baby, not Harry. She never cared one way or the other about children, not before she met Clara, but you did.” Sherlock sits up, opening his eyes and pulling his arms beneath the water’s surface to wrap them around his drawn-up knees. “One of the reasons you sought out so many partners in the past--three continents’ worth, John, _honestly_ \--was that you wanted to have as many experiences as you could before you settled down.”

“Okay, one, if you don’t think that you benefit from my three continents’ worth of experience, think again, and two, quit trying to distract me from talking about heat. Not happening.” John turns and reduces the jet’s power. It burbles against his back as he settles into the seat.

“You do want children, though,” Sherlock insists.

John makes a fist with his left hand. Unmakes it. “Sherlock, I’ve only just got well enough to think about that again. Leave it.” 

Sherlock presses his lips together, contrite. “Continue.”

The humid, bromine-scented air fills John’s lungs. Again. Again. “Right. So. Heat. It’s different to the sex we’ve had so far.”

“Yes, I’d gathered as much, given that you haven’t subjected me to any tedious lectures until now,” Sherlock grouses, flicking his ears. Their damp fur leaves them looking sad and diminished; John feels a pang of sympathy. Sherlock, proud though he is, is out of his depth, and his efforts to hide it are ineffective.

John stretches his left leg until his foot finds Sherlock’s shin. He strokes it, reassuring, mindful of the wiry hair. “It’s… we’ll feel like we’re going to die if we don’t fuck, so we’ll fuck, and then we’ll feel like we’re going to die if we don’t hold each other, so we’ll hold each other, which will turn us on so much that we’ll feel like we’re going to die if we don’t fuck… you get the idea. Could be four days of that. Could be a week. I’ve got the house ready: everything’s clean, we’ve plenty of condoms, and the fridge is stocked.” 

“I don’t care about food,” Sherlock says, almost a reflex.

“Sure you don’t. That’s why the first thing you did when you broke into my house was eat all my biscuits.” John talks over Sherlock’s attempt at a protest: “No cooking and no experiments-- _none,_ Sherlock--’til heat’s over. You’re bloody well close to burning down the house when you’re only a little hormone-addled.” Sherlock scowls as John’s foot gives Sherlock’s shin a final pat and settles on the tub floor. “There's no delicate way to bring this up, I guess, but, uh, knotting. I usually enjoy it, but we can skip it, if you want.”

“I don’t want to skip it,” Sherlock tells the churning water.

John nods. “You know that once we knot--”

“--we’re stuck together until the knot goes down,” Sherlock says, “which is to say, until I’ve come rather a lot, possibly well beyond the point of comfort for either or both of us. I may not have shared a heat with anyone, John, but I do _read_.” 

“Okay. All right. Just… one more thing, and then we should get out of here before we both pass out.” John half-floats, half-walks across the tub and kneels over Sherlock’s lap. He wraps his hands around the bases of Sherlock’s antlers, which have turned to bone, stark as birch branches and beaded with condensation. “However intense things get,” John says, his eyes focussed on Sherlock’s, “you can always change your mind, or tell me that you want something different, or tell me to stop. I’m not one of those arseholes who thinks that being in heat means that we aren’t accountable for what we do.” 

Sherlock lifts his hands and curls them around John’s. They’re warm from the water. “Nor am I,” he says, his voice low, “though it’s you who ought to worry about me, I would think.”

“Because you’re an Alpha?” Sherlock nods; John shakes his head. “Sex isn’t gender, and neither one says a damn thing about the way you’re going to treat me during heat. I don’t believe the stereotypes.”

“Your parents did, though.”

John swallows. “We really ought to get out,” he says, though he stays. The timer clicks. The jets go silent. The water stills.

“Couldn’t have been easy, you being genderqueer.” Sherlock’s gaze is almost gentle.

He knows. Of course he knows. “My parents never did accept it,” John manages. “Kept trying to prove me wrong. ‘Oh, you want to be a doctor? That’s your Omega nurturing instinct!’ ‘You’re not sure which med schools to apply to? Perfectly healthy Omega indecision.’ ‘You want to have kids, John! Once you find the right Alpha and get yourself bonded, you’ll stop with this genderqueer nonsense. You’ll see.’ God, they wanted so badly for me to be what they thought of as normal.” 

“I can’t imagine what that felt like,” Sherlock says, so soft. Joking. Sort of.

John lowers his face to Sherlock’s shoulder. He nuzzles the scent gland, breathing in the familiar flood of pine and smoke and honey as he drags his teeth over the sweating skin. If he bit down, it would bond him to Sherlock, would leave him craving Sherlock’s smell and no other for the rest of his days.

A formality, really.

Sherlock cups one hand around the back of John’s head. Brushes his lips over John’s temple. Says, “John.”

“I want to,” John murmurs, pressing kisses along Sherlock’s clavicle. “So much.”

Sherlock’s hand works its way into John’s hair. “During heat, then?”

“Yeah. If you want.”

A tug at John’s scalp. “You know I’ll never be tame.”

Sherlock’s shoulder is warm against John’s smile. “Neither will I.”

John blows out the candles. Sherlock towels dry and drifts into the woods.

John waits.


	7. Deer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock share an experience that doesn't go as planned.

Sherlock empties the sauce boat over his third slice of apple pie and picks up his fork. “John made me teach this morning,” he complains to Mrs. Hudson, not pausing as he shovels precarious heaps of food into his mouth. “Dull, though the students were less disappointing than I had anticipated.”

“He was brilliant,” John says. His stomach’s queasy. He pushes away his full plate. His limbs feel heavy, his skin is prickling hot and cold, and his gut is cramping: either his heat is starting early, or he’s coming down with something. Given that he’s sitting next to Mrs. Hudson at her kitchen table, John really, really hopes that he’s coming down with something.

“Meretricious,” Sherlock counters, caramel making his words sticky-thick. He licks the last bits of crumb and caramel from his plate, washes his hands, and disappears into the living room.

“I’ve never seen him eat like that,” John tells Sherlock’s empty dish. Its painted flowers and gold leaf edges look surreal, too vivid in the afternoon sunlight. The sound of Sherlock’s violin flows into the room.

“It’s all the sugar, John. I thought he’d be keen on salt, back when he first showed up--deer love salt licks, you know, or at least the ones that come ’round my garden do--but turns out, he’s a fiend for sugar. Not like _deer_ deer. Always eating my hostas, the filthy buggers, and let me tell you, hostas aren’t cheap. I’ve half a mind to get my shotgun certificate…” Mrs. Hudson blinks and pulls her cardigan snug around her body. “Sorry, dear. Seem to’ve wandered. Where were we?”

“Sugar,” John says with a small smile, “and Sherlock.”

“Oh! Right. Yes, sometimes it’s all I can get him to eat, bless his heart.” Mrs. Hudson taps him on the shoulder; her touch feels too-much, overwhelming, in a way it never has before. “You’ve hardly eaten yours, John.”

“It’s great, Mrs. H, I’m just…” ( _not going into heat, I still have two to six days before that happens, and I will not be in your kitchen when it does_ ) “... not feeling well.” 

Mrs. Hudson stands. “You do look a bit peaky,” she says, resting one hand on her bad hip as she walks to the kitchen sink. “No, no, don’t get up, John. You drink your cuppa. I can do the washing up on my own.”

Head spinning, his too-hot face resting heavy against the palm of his hand, John complies. The pinecones embroidered on the tablecloth seem to drift. John blinks and, with some difficulty, decides that he ought to call for Sherlock.

Before he can find his voice, the first unmistakable heat cramp hits. He grunts when it’s slow to subside; the skin on the inside of his thighs goes wet and hot and, and there is--there is absolutely no way that he didn’t just soak through his jeans.

Mrs. Hudson looks up from the sudsy sink. She sees John’s face, dries her hands, and says, “Oh, you poor thing. Stay right there.” She walks into the living room; John hears her murmur, “Sherlock, I think you’d best see your young man home.” 

John can imagine Sherlock’s irritated expression: “Yes, yes. In a minute. I’ve only just started the chaconne--”

“ _Now._ ”

Mrs. Hudson drops a towel into John’s lap. The floral smell of its fabric softener is intense and nauseating. He grimaces and says, “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hudson. I was supposed to have had another couple of days, at least.”

“Hush. These things happen. I’ll just throw that cushion in the wash and leave you to it… go on and take the towel with you, and give me a ring when you two are ready to leave the house again.”

As soon as she’s gone, John undoes his flies, tugs down his jeans and pants, and dries himself off. It won’t last--he’ll have to do it at least once more on the walk home--but it’s better than letting himself soak in his own lube. 

Sherlock strides into the kitchen and stops short. His nostrils flare; his eyes narrow; his ears twitch. His voice is hope and hesitation, answer and question: “John?”

John tosses Sherlock the towel. “Smell.”

Sherlock presses the fabric to his face and inhales, then groans, “ _John._ ”

A cold drizzle falls through gnarled branches as John and Sherlock walk into the woods. Brightly coloured leaves--arrowwood, oak, maple--slip between John’s boots and the damp ground. Sherlock’s draped the towel over his shoulder and, every few steps, buries his face in it; he’s hard already, John sees, his skin stretched tight over his swollen knot. 

They walk, and walk, every step a struggle. _Get home_ , John thinks, _just get home,_ but his cock aches and his cunt aches and Sherlock smells so fucking _good_ and--

“In here,” Sherlock growls, pulling John with him into the hollow oak. 

“I don’t have any condoms with me,” John manages, but he’s already toeing off his boots and peeling off his jumper. By the time that Sherlock strokes John’s sides, John has made his decision: naked, dizzy with arousal, John presses close to Sherlock and buries his hands in Sherlock’s hair. He lowers Sherlock’s face to his scent gland; Sherlock sucks on it, panting hard through his nose, and John says, “Bite.”

The pain is immediate, all-consuming. John tries to inhale, but there’s no room in him for breath. He shifts his grip to Sherlock’s antlers and holds on as Sherlock licks the blood from the open wound and ruts against John’s stomach, his hands possessive on John’s arse. He kisses a wet trail up to John’s ear and murmurs, “Your turn.”

Dazed, John sets his teeth against Sherlock’s freckled shoulder and bites down. Blood-smoke-salt-honey strikes the back of his throat: _Sherlock_ , concentrated. John palms the back of Sherlock’s head, soothing, as Sherlock’s shouts fade to whimpers and he lies on his back, pulling John down with him. There’s an angry red welt over his scent gland; John’s own throbs with pain. Dirt and bark stick to John’s hands and knees as he crawls to his discarded oatmeal jumper, wads it into an impromptu pillow, and jams it under Sherlock’s head, then straddles Sherlock’s narrow hips and rocks, moaning at the warm, liquid pleasure of Sherlock’s erection sliding against his perineum. 

“I need,” Sherlock breathes, squirming as his thrusts turn desperate and arrhythmic, “John. I _need._ ” John guides the head of Sherlock’s cock to the slick ring of muscle at the opening of his cunt and transfers his weight, adjusting to the pressure of Sherlock filling him.

“Don’t push yet,” John says when he reaches Sherlock’s knot. Sherlock shakes from the effort of holding himself still and makes frantic noises in the back of his throat as John slowly stretches around the knot, his entrance clenching tight around its base when his arse rests flush against Sherlock’s thighs. He feels his body trying to close itself and accepts the raw, intimate fact of Sherlock holding him open. The rain drums on the wood above them as John stares at Sherlock’s face--lips bloody, eyes wide, hair wild and rained-on and flecked with dead leaves--and says, “Come on.”

Sherlock’s hands spread over John’s hips and hold John still through four hard, jarring thrusts that leave John groaning his approval. John spasms around Sherlock’s knot, drawing come from him, and whispers _oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck_ , his cunt becoming impossibly wetter and warmer, his cock throbbing between his body and Sherlock’s. Sherlock closes one hand around John's cock and strokes him; John runs his thumbs over Sherlock's velvet-soft ears. At least one of them is crying out, but John has no way of knowing who, of telling where and whether there are boundaries between them. If there are, he doesn't want to know; he wants to stay like this, joined, inseparable. 

By the time Sherlock softens and slides out, John is exhausted. He collapses onto Sherlock's chest and asks, “You okay?”

“Fine.” Sherlock embraces him and nuzzles his hair. “You?”

John nods. “Yeah. Though what we did, just now. That was… that was not the plan.”

“No,” Sherlock agrees. “It really wasn’t.”

“It’s fine. I have backup pills at home.” God, he’s so tired, but they need to get home: they’re going to wake up thirsty and hungry and naked-cold in the middle of the forest, and that won’t be--

“You don’t want to take them.”

John blinks. Inhales the rich, earthy smell of fallen oak. “No. I don’t. Do you want me to?”

“John,” Sherlock says, his voice low and tired, “I doubt it will surprise you that I have strong opinions on the matter, but--loath as I am to admit it--they are irrelevant. The decision is yours.”

The _loud_ -quiet, _loud_ -quiet rhythm of Sherlock’s heart is soothing. “If I didn't,” John says, more cautious than hopeful, “and if I turned out to be... that wouldn't be boring?”

John doesn’t have to see Sherlock’s face to know that Sherlock is rolling his eyes. “John, I promise you that I would find any living, breathing human being comprised entirely of _us_ emphatically _not_ boring." Sherlock pauses. Kisses the top of John's head. "Though I should warn you that it is possible that it could--that the child might be--”

“An arrogant, antlered pain in the arse who sheds on our furniture and eats all our biscuits? Yeah. Yeah, the thought had occurred to me. Learned just the tiniest bit of biology in med school, ta.”

Sherlock says nothing. That doesn’t mean, John thinks as Sherlock helps him up and brings him his clothes and stays at his side as they make their way home, that Sherlock doesn’t answer.


	8. Snows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an epilogue, and a first snow.

Sherlock strides into the sun parlour in a burst of cold air. He flicks snow from his winter coat as the door bangs shut behind him; when he shakes his head, flakes fly from his hair.

John’s eyes go wide. “Your last antler’s dropped.” 

“Obviously.” Sherlock grabs a towel from the table by the door, dries himself with brisk strokes, and tosses the towel aside. 

“Don’t think I’m cleaning that up after you,” John says, gesturing to the towel as Sherlock joins him on the sofa, his legs pulled to his chest. “Why didn’t you wake me? I would’ve gone with you.”

“Unnecessary. I’m more than capable of making the morning rounds on my own.” John’s about to protest when Sherlock gives him a sidelong glance. “It was my impression,” Sherlock continues, voice more gentle, “that people in your--that you may wish to sleep, considering.”

John blinks. Stares at Sherlock. There are snowflakes suspended in the fur at the base of his ears. “Sherlock,” John says, “that’s… thoughtful, actually. Thanks.” He rests one hand on Sherlock’s knee; John reflects that even while sitting, Sherlock manages to preen. “Phone woke me up, though. Harry and Clara wanted to chat.”

Sherlock’s knee bounces under John’s hand. “Mmm?”

“They’re fine. Surrogate’s doing well.” John taps his foot on the parquet. “Clara’s worried that I’ll confuse their baby.”

“That’s absurd,” Sherlock scoffs. “Even a child can grasp that sex isn’t gender.” 

“Clara’s really something.” None of the stress reduction exercises that Ella suggested all those months ago feel remotely relevant; John shakes his head. “I killed people, Sherlock. Gambled myself broke, pissed off to the forest, bonded with a half-deer madman who studies corpses for a living--Christ, no, don’t look like that, you know what I mean--and what’s her concern? That I don’t feel like, don’t _act_ like, an Alpha or an Omega. Really bothers her. Unbe-fucking-lievable.”

One of Sherlock’s hands finds its way to John’s and moves in soothing circles as he says, “Mrs. Hudson took you for an Alpha. ‘He’s short, Sherlock, but he’s so commanding. He’ll take good care of you. You need that, you know.’” Sherlock snorts. “You should’ve seen her face when she came in to tell me that you--”

John laughs, to his surprise, and waves his free hand in front of his face. “Jesus. Don’t remind me.” 

“You absolutely _soaked_ that cushion,” Sherlock says, his voice rich with glee. “Mrs. Hudson told me that she washed it, but she lied to spare your feelings. Evidence indicates that she threw it on the leaf pile and burnt it.”

“Shut _up_ ,” John wheezes. When the laughter calms, he says, “Anyway, that’s not so bad, Mrs. Hudson thinking I was an Alpha. Hardly the first time somebody thought I was gay. The way that Harry and Clara talk about us, though--that really bothers me. I think they think that I settled for you, that I think I’m too much a freak to have done better.”

Sherlock presses his lips together. “Mmm, no. They think that I get off on you being genderqueer, and that you, meanwhile, have some sort of fetish for cursed--” 

“ _Fuck_ what they think,” John says, harder than he means to, and Sherlock’s eyebrows rise. “They’re fucking ignorant. You know that isn’t why I--”

“I have never doubted,” Sherlock interrupts, “that any sentiment you harbour for me is rooted in--”

“--because it’s who you are, Sherlock, not _what_ you are, that makes me--”

“--would never reduce you to a social construct or a set of genitals--”

“--you’re the center of my fucking--” John pauses. Purses his lips. “Hang on. Did you just say ‘genitals’?”

Sherlock shrugs. “I can hardly say ‘bollocks’, can I?”

“There’s other slang.”

“ _Common,_ ” Sherlock says, tucking his chin close to his neck.

John gives in to the grin that’s been trying to stretch across his face. “You are the strangest man.”

“You’re just now getting that?” Sherlock returns John’s smile. Squeezes John’s hand. “Idiot.”

“Oh, the mouth on you,” John says, mock-mournful.

Sherlock rises. He straddles John’s legs, sliding his fingers beneath the collar of John’s jumper. “It has to be kept busy,” Sherlock explains, “or it gets into all kinds of trouble.”

“Is that right?” John tilts his face up to Sherlock’s. Settles his hands at the base of Sherlock’s tail. “I’d hate to see your mouth get into trouble.”

Sherlock leans close to John’s ear and says, low, “What if trouble got into my mouth?”

“I suppose it could,” John allows, already going hard and wet in his jeans, “now that your antlers’ve dropped.”

Sherlock kisses him full on the mouth, all hungry lips and restless tongue. “I’ve been waiting months for this,” he murmurs, “and I _hate_ waiting.”

John is, as he and Sherlock both know, no idiot. “Bedroom,” John orders. “Now.”

Groping, stumbling, they tumble into bed. John strips, and Sherlock grabs a pillow to kneel on, settling on the floor at the foot of the bed as he gestures for John to sit in front of him. When John hooks his legs over Sherlock’s speckled shoulders and presses his heels against Sherlock’s back, Sherlock splays his hands on the insides of John’s thighs and pushes them apart. He rubs his face beneath John’s thickening cock, humming with greed as he noses and licks along John’s perineum. 

John squeezes fistfuls of blanket. Sherlock laps at John’s cunt, pushes his tongue in as John rocks and moans and _wants_ , but Sherlock pulls out. He rests his face against John’s right thigh and doesn’t quite stifle a smirk. “Good?”

“Bastard.” John raises his left hand and strokes Sherlock’s cheek, thumbing over freckles whose placement he’s learnt by heart. “Very good.”

Sherlock rolls the fragile skin of John’s inner thigh between his teeth before he lifts his head. He wraps one hand around John’s cock and slides the other between John’s legs, easing two fingertips into John’s arse and the end of his thumb into John’s cunt. 

John breathes, waits, as his perineal body adjusts to his being held open, as the discomfort passes. Face smug, he stares down at Sherlock. “That’s it?” 

“It doesn’t have to be,” Sherlock says, pushing fully in. He presses his thumb against John’s anterior wall, hard, as he slips a third finger into John’s arse. 

“Fuck,” John hisses, dropping his head back and pushing down onto Sherlock’s hand. “Good.”

Sherlock moves his right hand from John’s erection to John’s hip. “Could be better,” he counters, wrapping his lips around the tip of John’s cock. Sherlock stills, mischief glittering in his eyes as he holds John’s gaze.

“Bastard,” John says again, this time in a whisper that he hopes carries the heat, the fierce I- _need_ -you, that he can’t force into words. He rubs his left thumb over Sherlock’s healed bond bite, and Sherlock hums; when John groans at the vibrations, Sherlock closes his eyes and slides forward until he nuzzles the curls at the base of John’s cock. He sets a slow and intoxicating rhythm: sucking as he pulls back, teasing under the head with his tongue, taking John in until John feels the back of Sherlock’s throat. 

John never looks away. He works his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, rubs the bases of Sherlock’s ears, massages Sherlock’s neck. The tempo builds, and builds, and there is the wet sound of Sherlock’s hand fucking him fast, of Sherlock’s throat swallowing around his cock. Sherlock clutches John’s hip, and John feels liquid heat gather between his legs, feels blood suffuse his sweating face, and--

“Sherlock, I’m going to--going to come, I can’t--oh, fuck, _Sherlock_.” John's cunt and arse clench around, soak, Sherlock’s hand; his cock jerks over Sherlock’s tongue; John’s fingers move on Sherlock’s scalp, and say _yes_ , and _love_ , and _this, exactly, this._

Slowly, slowly, John stills. Sherlock slides his hand free. Pulls his mouth off. He keeps his eyes closed and--deliberate, reverent--lays a string of kisses beneath John’s navel. His lips are warm on John’s skin. 

John stands. Reaches for Sherlock. “Up. Jesus, you must be aching.”

“I’m fine,” Sherlock insists as John helps him to his feet and pulls him close. John strokes him; Sherlock is already so hard that he whimpers with relief at the contact.

“You’re not ‘fine’,” John says, Sherlock’s pulse beating in his hand. “You’re amazing.”

Sherlock comes less than a minute later, breathing hard, his face buried in John’s hair.

They share the shower and, when they’re dry, wander into the sun parlour. The snow, silent, has gathered thick over the apple branches; the sky glows pale orange. Fat flakes drift past the windows and settle on the sills. Light refracts from the snow and glows in the stained glass, pouring colours over the sofa. 

John sits, bathed in blue and green. Sherlock lies down and rests his face on John’s thigh. “Worth the wait?” John asks.

Sherlock’s smile is subtle, but John couldn’t miss it. “Impossible to tell. I refuse to theorise ahead of the evidence.” 

“Not what I meant,” John points out, placid. Sherlock’s hand is a warm weight on his knee. 

“Yes,” Sherlock concedes. “All of it. Yes.”

They wait together, not moving until the window is dim, the sun below the horizon, the snow done falling, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, team, we did it. Thank you for hanging in there; I know my stuff isn't as long as most fic, and I appreciate that you stuck around between updates. That was really nice of you. <3
> 
> Hope you're having a lovely autumn.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Blood and Bone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/888473) by [quid_est](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quid_est/pseuds/quid_est)




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